Prof. Tamar Lotan

I completed my B.Sc. and M.Sc. studies at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and received my Ph.D. from the Weizmann Institute of Science. After my first postdoctoral training in Israel, I was awarded the prestigious European HFSP Fellowship for further postdoctoral research at the University of California, Davis. My work at UC Davis, although focused on basic developmental biology and published in the journal Cell, also led to several patents and practical applications in agriculture.

When my family and I returned to Israel, we founded Nidaria Technology, a company that developed an innovative lotion providing combined protection against sun exposure and jellyfish stings. The company received the Excellence Award from the Chief Scientist of the Ministry of Industry and Trade, and its products are now sold in more than 20 countries worldwide. I later founded and managed another biotech company, NanoCyte, which operated until 2019. The company’s goal was to harness the stinging-cell injection mechanism of jellyfish and sea anemones for transdermal delivery of drugs and cosmetic agents. The technology was successfully evaluated in both in-vivo experiments and clinical trials.

At the end of 2009, I joined the newly established Leon H. Charney School of Marine Sciences at the University of Haifa, where, together with my colleagues, I founded the Department of Marine Biology. Since then, I have held several positions, including serving as Head of the Department from 2017 to 2022.